Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, shown here before the Giants game Dec. 1, spoke with coach Mike Shanahan on Monday. (Nick Wass/Associated Press)
Washington Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan said he spoke Monday with the team’s owner, Daniel Snyder. Shanahan remained in place as the team’s coach but he declined to say whether his conversation with Snyder produced a resolution as to whether Shanahan will remain with the franchise more than temporarily.
“I can say that I’ve talked to Dan, if that’s what you’re asking,” Shanahan said Monday at his regularly scheduled news conference at Redskins Park. “Obviously our conversation will stay between us.”
Snyder was not available to comment.
The conversation came a day after several people familiar with the situation said the relationship between Shanahan and Snyder appears beyond repair and they expect Shanahan and the team to part ways by soon after the season at the latest.
“I’m not gonna go into detail about my conversation with Dan,” Shanahan said. “I’m not gonna go into detail about our relationship. All I’m saying to you is I get along with Dan quite well. He’s been a very supportive owner and hopefully I can win for him.”
Shanahan also said, “I’ve got a good relationship with Dan.” He declined to elaborate on that but said, “At the end of the day, my job is to get this football team ready to play Atlanta. I know we played very poorly against Kansas City. I did a poor job getting them ready. Hopefully [I’ll do] a much better job this week.”
Some in and around the organization have said that it is extremely rare for Shanahan and Snyder to speak at length during the season, beyond brief conversations that sometimes occur on the practice field. Shanahan generally has left substantive conversations with Snyder about the state of the team to General Manager Bruce Allen, those people have said.
Several people close to the situation have said that members of Redskins’ management were angry about a report Sunday by ESPN that Shanahan considered quitting his job after last season. Team officials wondered about the timing and motivation behind the report and questioned if Shanahan was trying to orchestrate his departure from the organization, those people with knowledge of the situation said.
Shanahan initially declined to answer a question during Monday’s news conference about whether he wants to remain with the Redskins beyond this season. He also refused to directly answer questions about whether he considered quitting after last season and whether he is confident he will coach the team the remainder of this season.
But he said later during the news conference: “You always want to come back. I love these guys [the team’s players]. What’ll happen at the end of the season, we’ll get a chance, Dan and I, to sit down and decide. He’ll make the final decision of what’s [in] the best interests of the Washington Redskins. I’ll give my opinion, what I think. Obviously he’ll make the final decision. But yeah, any time you’re with these guys — we’ve got some great character. And we’ve got some guys working extremely hard. So I would like nothing more than to be with them.”
Shanahan did not directly answer a question about whether he orchestrated Sunday’s report by ESPN.
“I can’t even speak on somebody else’s comments,” Shanahan said. “Sometimes, like I said before, they may take something out of it. They hear something from a friend, another person. Sometimes it’s embellished. Sometimes some of it’s true. But at the end of the day, you’ve got one job and one job only. And that’s to prepare this football team to win. And one of the reasons why I didn’t comment on that is once I start commenting on it, I would have to keep on commenting all the way through. And I think I used the moving out of the office as an example how things get a little carried away.”
The ESPN report said that Shanahan cleaned out his office before last season ended, before changing his mind about quitting.
“If I answer that question … then what happens is you do it every day for the next three weeks,” Shanahan said Monday. “And so that’s why I focus on the job at hand. There’s always gonna be rumors. There’s gonna be partial truths. … When I read it, it talked about me cleaning out my office. It’d take me two minutes to clean out my office. I’ve got two notebooks and I’ve got an iPad. That would get me out of my office. So when I hear different things like that, I just shake my head. So that’s as far as I’m gonna go with that.”
Shanahan said he believes Redskins players continue to give effort despite Sunday’s 45-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He said he apologized to players Monday about the recent distractions the team has endured.
“We’re 3-10,” Shanahan said. “That’s what happens when you’re 3-10. We can’t talk about the playoffs. We can’t talk about our draft choice. We don’t have a first-round draft choice. We’ve got to talk about something. And normally, that occurs after a winning season. I’m sure something like this is happening in different markets across the country when you have those type of expectations.”
What’s ahead:
● RB Evan Royster is out for the season
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Shanahan considering benching Griffin | At the podium: Shanahan [with video]
D.C. Sports Bog: Reporters press Shanahan | Coach challenges WUSA’s Owens | More
Cofield on what Shanahan said to players | Cousins backs Shanahans
Redskins could fire Shanahan, withhold money | Relationship beyond repair
Five observations on the state of the Redskins
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